6 Marketing Tips For E-Commerce Sites On A Budget

You’ve set up your e-commerce business, and you’re ready to get selling, but how are people supposed to buy from you if they don’t know you exist? Well, the answer is simple. You need to make sure you are effectively marketing your brand and your goods or services. But in case you’re worried that marketing is this big expensive process that you can’t afford right now, let us put your mind at ease. There are plenty of ways you can market your e-commerce sites on a budget, and we are going to share six examples with you in the guide below.

1. Get Social

The first thing you need to do is set up at least one social media account for your business. This could be Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or TikTok. You could also use a combination of these depending on what you feel is right for your brand and your customers.

Social media is an essential and useful way for you to connect with your target audience and start creating sales funnels.

Most of these tools are completely free to set up, and as long as you’re willing to put in the time to post on these platforms regularly, you don’t need to spend any money. Unless you want to, that is.

Even with e-commerce sites on a budget, you can set a little bit aside for advertising, for example, running Facebook or Instagram ad campaigns. These can be inexpensive when done correctly, but as we say, you can use these tools totally free if you prefer.

2. Make Content a Priority

You may have heard the saying ‘content is king’, and that remains true to this day. One of the greatest things about content is it can also be inexpensive and can generate some impressive results. Therefore, you should make content a top priority for your marketing efforts.

There are several ways you can do this, including:

•   Using social media – There are lots of different types of content, and you can share a mixture of these across your social media channels. A selection of written words, images and videos can help to increase your following and promote your business. For example knowing how often to post on Instagram will give your content the boost it needs.
•   Start a blog – A business blog can be the ideal way to create and share content. Just be sure to create posts that are genuinely helpful or interesting to your customers. You can then share these on your social media channels for extra exposure.
•   Make videos – Video is the preferred medium for so many consumers right now, and these can be a great way to promote your goods or services and build your brand. You could include these on your website, as well as social media channels like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
•   Educational materials – There are lots of ways you can create genuinely educational materials for your audience. This can be done through presentations, white papers, leaflets or any other format you think would be beneficial to readers.

Ultimately, you should create content in whatever form suits you and your audience the best, and that will be most beneficial to your customers. Just be sure that your content is engaging and informative and that you update this regularly.

3. Understand SEO

You don’t have to become an expert at search engine optimisation (SEO), but you do need to understand what it is and why it’s important if you want to market your e-commerce sites on a budget effectively.

The idea behind SEO is that all content is optimised with relevant keywords to help search engines understand what it is and whether it’s relevant to the user. Your SEO efforts can help to increase the visibility of your web pages and allows Google to show your goods or services to a wider audience.

So when creating any content, you need to make sure you optimise this for search engines. There are lots of free or cost-effective tools out there that can help you to do this, and there’s plenty of material online that can help you get to grips with this important marketing strategy.

Alternatively, you could invest in a budget-friendly SEO provider to help you if you’re feeling unsure about tackling this task yourself.

4. Partner with a Micro-Influencer

You’ve probably seen influencers on social media who are promoting the goods or services of some of their favourite brands. Now, large organisations can pay a lot of money to have very famous influences advertising their stuff, but you don’t have to.

Micro-influencers are those with a smaller but still impressive following. Often their fees will be a lot smaller, or many are prepared to unbox or advertise your products for free if they receive the goods as a gift for themselves.

So do some research into popular accounts in your niche and look for those that would align nicely with your brand and messaging. You can then begin reaching out and forming partnerships with those influencers you want to work with.

5. Ask for Reviews

Think about each time you intend to buy a new product or go to a new restaurant; what is one of the first things you do? For many, the answer is to look at online reviews before committing. These reviews can have a huge influence on your decisions which is why online reviews can make or break a business. Therefore, you should ask customers nicely if they would mind leaving a review of their experiences with your company.

Not only could this persuade others to spend with you, but reviews can actually help with your SEO efforts as well. Search engines like Google will use these reviews to help rank your pages and to recommend you to potential customers.

So reach out to customers via email, social media or on the phone and ask them to pop a quick review online to help promote your business. It’s completely free and can have a huge impact.

6. Start a Referral Scheme

Finally, word-of-mouth can be one of the most powerful marketing tools there is, so why not incentivise your customers to share their experiences with their peers by setting up a referral scheme?

One of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to do this is to offer some sort of reward, such as a free gift or one-time discount, to those who buy through your e-commerce site and then refer their friends or family, resulting in a sale.